Manage purchase orders

Use purchase orders to document the items or expenses ordered from a vendor, together with their expected receipt date, location, price, and payment terms. A purchase order records a purchasing commitment without posting to the general ledger; its related receipts, vendor bills, prepayments, and other processing transactions create accounting impact when applicable.

Open Menu and select Purchasing > Manage purchase orders. Use the Purchase orders tab for individual orders and the Recurring purchase orders tab for templates that generate orders on a schedule. On Purchase orders, you can search by purchase order number and filter the list by Vendor, Purchase order date, Status, Expected receipt date, and Total.

Open More actions above the list to download the current view, import data, or save a new list view. Select one or more purchase orders to use the available Approve, Reject, or Submit bulk action. Approval actions are available only when purchase order approvals are enabled and the selected records are in an eligible status.

The actions for an individual purchase order depend on its status and your permissions. They can include Details, Edit, Make copy, Delete, Submit, Approve, Reject, Withdraw approval, Make prepayment, Receive, Bill, Close, Void, and Make recurring.

Purchase order lifecycle

  1. Create a purchase order and select Save as draft when it is not ready for processing, or select Submit.
  2. If approvals are enabled, approve or reject a submitted purchase order. An eligible user can withdraw a purchase order that is awaiting approval.
  3. Receive delivered items from an eligible purchase order. See Create an item receipt.
  4. Create a vendor bill for eligible item or expense lines. See Create a vendor bill from a purchase order.
  5. Close remaining lines when you do not expect to receive or bill them. Use Void only when the entire purchase order should be voided.

Accounting impact

A purchase order records a purchasing commitment but does not post to the general ledger. QuickStart calculates a non-posting GL impact for the order. The related item receipt, vendor bill, vendor prepayment, and other processing transactions create their own accounting impacts when applicable.

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